Dress Your Salads With The Taste Of Autumn

[caption id="attachment_4496" align="alignleft" width="239" caption="Salads For Autumn"][/caption]

Coordinating your meals with the seasons is always a great idea. The best part about salads is you can essentially eat them anytime throughout the year. But now that autumn has arrived, take a look at some of these salad ideas courtesy of The Wall Street Journal:

Eating seasonally after Labor Day needn't mean packing away the salad bowl with your white pants. When you're armed with fresh fall produce and a few techniques, a world of warm possibilities opens up. This time of year, trade the cool crunch of romaine and sweet tomatoes for toothsome salads rooted in roasted vegetables, wilted greens or nutty, toasted grains. Top sharp endive and arugula with silky mushrooms, sliced tenderloin, flash-fried seafood or a pillowy just-poached egg. Drizzle petite potatoes or a pile of spinach with herbs and a warm vinaigrette of wine and bacon.

Warm salads, or salades tiedes as they're known in French cooking, have long been a favorite of chefs (think: the bistro stalwart salade Lyonnaise) and remain staples on the menus at seasonally-minded restaurants across the country. But warm salads are equally suited to the home kitchen, where they provide quick, savory suppers and an ideal canvas for leftovers. Read the recipes, as well as some tips to help you whip up your own four-star creations.

—Sarah Karnasiewicz

Salads Dressed for Cool Weather

The recipes below were culled from notable chefs and food authors around the country. But if you want to make your own warm salad, don't hold back. Improvisation is easy when you follow a couple of rules of thumb.

First: consider contrasts. When composing a salad, the goal should be a balanced mix of snap and silkiness, bitterness and sweetness, cool and heat. A handful of nuts or toasted seeds can add just the right amount of crunch to yogurt dressing or a dish of watercress and roasted squash. And the simple (yet rich) addition of fried chicken livers will elevate an otherwise quotidian frisée salad to luxe heights.

Second: Watch the clock. The difference between a deliciously wilted salad and a limp one can come down to a matter of minutes. Just before you're ready to eat, get your components (and your dining companions) assembled. And don't allow too much time to pass between plating and that first bite.

Read more at The Wall Street Journal